Tad Richards

A YOUNG MAN

A young man awakens from

a short sleep in the moments

before dawn, to find Death

standing by his bedside

admiring his beloved.

She is naked, and her body

is like a painting in sand

from a Southwestern desert

between two panes of glass

for sale to tourists, though he

remembers it as like bread.

He is inclined to let

Death take her, which decision

surprises him with its ease,

till he sees, in the palpable dawn,

that Death has a body of dough

fresh-risen, the smell of yeast,

her hair a dusting of flour.

OWLS

That woman who breeds

owls for hunting

trained to bring her trophies

carcasses

with delicate bones

was once herself

a burrowing gopher

engaged in

furtive sorties till

guile transformed her

as few have been before

she left no

sign of her former

existence but

she knew where the trails led

could see the

subterranean

patterns of deception

could set her birds

at the mouth

of each escape route

she knew what each scream meant

the pitch of surprise turned

to terror

which bone had been snapped

BEST TO GO

We all die, which is why

she wants to look you over now, though

she won't say it, or anything. Her

silence is scraped together from birds

swarming from lawn to treetop,

or money being measured,

or your mistress, the one who rides

naked at dawn, whose skin is golden.

Hers is pale. Best to go to her.

The Tower Journal, Spring 2013

GRAVITY GONE MAD

Gravity gone mad

      a black hole of

             apocalyptic proportions

an object of such

       concentrated matter

              its gravitational pull

                     is irresistible

once inside it

       nothing can escape

              not even light itself

                     anything too close

                            is sucked into 

oblivion

       it destroys the very fabric

              of the universe

                     it distorts 

                            space-time

                                   to the breaking point

BAIT AND SWITCH

The dead keep texting me,

e-mails, instant message:

they’ve settled on me

to be their spokesman.

They won’t say why.

Perhaps it was spam,

they were phishing,

I got suckered in

like those Nigerian

bank accounts,

like those housewives

in your home town

who want to have sex with you

tonight. They want people,

not necessarily

their loved ones, who mostly

they no longer think about,

to know the truth:

Death is a scam,

a bait and switch.

Don’t get taken in.

YOU CAN

You can

talk to Death but

you can’t feed him

easy to remember

when he comes in white

tie and tails

an ambassador’s sash

sits at the head

of the table snaps

his fingers for servants

demands the best

china the perfect

vintage wine

2005 Lynch-Bages

sends to the chef for

a roast suckling

pig with an apple

in its mouth

harder when you look

down and he’s there as

a puppy with soft eyes

© Tad Richards

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